After avoiding the media for over a week while questions about his personal positions on abortion and LGBT rights were being debated, Andrew Scheer called a press conference yesterday to say that Justin Trudeau was lacking in courage for not agreeing to the Maclean’s and Munk debates (well, he hasn’t agreed yet, but he also hasn’t said no). Mind you, the guy talking about courage and showing up has been avoiding the media for the past week, so that’s no small amount of irony. Oh, and he also accused the Liberals of trying to deflect from their record by dredging up Scheer’s statements on “divisive social issues.” That said, Scheer hewed strictly to talking points that continued to make cute distinctions between a hypothetical future Conservative government and backbenchers, and essentially said that they could put forward any bill they wanted and he wouldn’t stop them – only he wouldn’t say so in as many words. To that end, it’s also worth reminding people that as Speaker, Scheer went out of his way to ensure that anti-abortion MPs got speaking slots when the Conservative leadership was trying to keep them under wraps, so that might be a clue as to how he’d treat possible future private members’ bills.
FWIW, @BrockWHarrison did not offer me this statement when asked, or respond whether that means Scheer will vote against pro-life measures or but he did say Scheer would not whip the vote on pro-life issues. https://t.co/GScHWFhmWm
— Althia Raj (@althiaraj) August 29, 2019
This having been said, I now wonder if the strategy for the Liberals isn’t to just bring social progressives and Red Tories to their side, but to try and goad Scheer into painting himself in enough of a corner with trying to assure Canadians that no, he would squelch any anti-abortion or anti-GLBT private members’ bills – really! – in the hopes that it would discourage the social conservatives in Scheer’s base into staying home, thus driving down their voter turnout. It would be novel if that’s what it was, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives put out a fundraising video yesterday featuring Stephen Harper, which is kind of ironic considering that they keep accusing the Liberals of dredging up Harper, only for them to do the very same thing. And with this in mind, I will often note that political parties these days have pretty much all hollowed themselves out into personality cults for their leaders, but with the Conservatives, they remain a personality cult for their former leader, Harper – that Scheer has had such a lack of personality or willpower to change the party to reflect him (though he did campaign on being Harper with a smile in the leadership, so that’s not too unsurprising). Nevertheless, bringing out the old leader in advance of the election is an odd bit of strategy that can’t speak too highly of the current leader.
Good reads:
- Justin Trudeau had a joint announcement with BC premier John Horgan about pushing to electrify the province’s LNG industry to reduce its emissions.
- Documents show the federal government pressed several groups for more information about their stance on abortion while assessing their summer job grants.
- The federal government is planning to give $16 million to a BC First Nation to protect a mountain valley where a controversial ski resort is being planned.
- Oh, look – another study that shows Canadians want to help the environment like they want a pony, and don’t want to be put out by it in any way.
- The Commissioner of Elections has entered into compliance agreements with two Montreal companies who made illegal donations to both Liberals and Conservatives.
- The “Canadian Nationalist Party,” which is associated with far-right extremists, is trying to get official party status from Elections Canada.
- StatsCan will release the quarterly GDP figures today, and economists say it could show a “Raptors bump” in advance of the election.
- A BC man who plead guilty to smuggling Chinese nationals across the Canadian border plans to challenge the mandatory minimums associated with the offence.
- Ontario labour leader Sid Ryan is accusing the NDP of shenanigans (and being a shambles) after they wouldn’t approve his candidacy for a nomination.
- Kevin Carmichael makes the case that the way in which Emmanuel Macron handled the G7 meeting in Biarritz could be a template for future meetings in the Trump era.
- Carmichael also posits that the government’s passive stance on taxing digital giants has helped to create the mess we’re in with them.
- Chris Selley boggles at the cynicism of Justin Trudeau’s renewed justifications for abandoning electoral reform.
- Senator Paula Simons describes her transition from journalist to senator, from outsider to insider (but she’s not the first to shine a light on the Chamber).
- Robert Hiltz rails about how vapid the various political slogans are, and the fact that their policies are no better.
Programming note: I’m taking the full long weekend off of blogging, because it’s likely my last time off before the election (where I will likely be working seven days a week). See you next week!
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“That said, Scheer hewed strictly to talking points that continued to make cute distinctions between a hypothetical future Conservative government and backbenchers…”
What “cute” distinctions would those be? Shouldn’t backbenchers be able to move bills? Or would we rather the PM control those too?
Distinctions or no distinctions, human rights shouldn’t be allowed to be legislated upon by anyone, period. Trudeau whipping residual pro-lifers and blocking any future ones from nomination is the correct move here, and one that other parties should adopt if they haven’t already.
Scheer’s mealy-mouthed evasiveness and canard about “freedom of speech” leaves too much in doubt. Neither he nor anyone in his party can be trusted not to so much as peek in that Pandora’s box.
“…human rights shouldn’t be allowed to be legislated upon by anyone, period.”
Well, so much for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then. I rather recall that the Charter was legislated as part of the Constitution Act, 1982. Was it not?
Freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression are amongst the “fundamental freedoms” enshrined in the Charter. The fact that you want to deny these rights to those who hold views you don’t approve of illustrates why legislation was needed.
Nice deflection. Scheer and his 18th-century Tea Party caucus are entitled to express or believe whatever they want, within reasonable limits. “Free speech” is not absolute in Canada as it is in the USA, much as the Republican Party of Canada wishes it were so. What they’re not allowed to do or shouldn’t be allowed to do is put their “feircley held beleifs” (per his laughably misspelled campaign advert) forward as legislation, thereby denying or attempting to deny rights to women, LGBTQ/2S people, Muslims, etc. They talk a good game about “creepin’ sharia” but what about Christian Scheeria? As Billy Joel said, keep it to yourself, it’s my life. My rights begin where Scheer’s lying nose ends. Neither the church nor the state have any business in the bedrooms, bathrooms or examining rooms of the nation. Period.
No deflection. I was just pointing out that you should either stand by the plain meaning of your words or resolve to write in a more thoughtful and considered tone, preferably both.
Folks who use word-salads of vitriol in an effort to condemn their opponents all too often end up looking like fanatics. One of the issues with fanatics is that their self-righteous inner rage leads them to ignore points of agreement with those they see as ‘the enemy.’
So, take a deep breath and consider this. In November 2011 Justin Trudeau told The Canadian Press that he was “personally very opposed to abortion” but that he wasn’t going to impose his view on women.
Similarly, in April 2011, Elizabeth May told the Georgia Straight that, despite her personal thoughts on abortion, she maintains a strongly held view that women should continue to have the right to safe, legal abortions.
As for the Conservatives, in his 10 years in power, Stephen Harper never allowed an anti-abortion law to be passed. Andrew Scheer has undertaken to maintain the same stance saying Thursday that “we will oppose measures that reopen these types of questions.” And Scheer’s deputy, Lisa Raitt, repeated this commitment on The House this Saturday.
In short, you are pushing against an open door. Quite rightly, none of the major parties will limit a woman’s right to choose, nor are they going to act against rights for LGBTQ/2S people. That being the case, you may wish to chalk up the “W” and get on with discussing real issues, rather that trying to stir up the culture wars for partisan ends. It’s getting tedious.
If prospective candidates have to swear fealty to the Leader’s personal ethics; and, if, once elected, they cannot vote or propose legislation that offends the Leader’s dictates; and, if they do, the Leader then expels them from caucus: doesn’t that open the door to totalitarianism?
Rhetorical, of course.
Dale,
Enjoy your long weekend with your significant other and/or family. Thanks for the great work.
Ronald McCallum
Re: electoral reform, the “Trudeau failure” complaint that won’t die. For too many people, “electoral reform” has become synonymous with “PR or bust.” Trudeau did say the reason he didn’t want PR is because fringe parties might end up holding the balance of power. Well, the bullet point above about the “Canadian Nationalist Party” pretty much makes his case.
How many governments has Italy had already? Look at the clusterf— that is the Knesset. And perhaps the most ominous of examples, the AfD in Germany throwing a monkey wrench in the Bundestag — wasn’t there some other guy in Germany whose fringe party got elected in a PR system with 32% of the vote and ended up being elevated to chancellor due to a weak coalition?
His mistake was trying to broach “consensus” (cf. “Common Ground”) with the other parties rather than just having the Liberal majority push through ranked ballots. The opposition would have screamed that he was a dictator but ended up doing that anyway when the Liberals dropped the issue altogether, and eventually would have moved onto some other shiny object. But RB would have reduced the “mainstream conservative” Reformacon yahoos to a rump party, while keeping the likes of the People’s Party, the Communist Party, Nationalist Party, etc., consigned to Rhino-level electoral oblivion.
Now, if the Liberals end up with a minority, they’re probably going to be forced to adopt PR by the less-fringe, but still fringe IMHO, NDP (socialist also-rans) and Greens (single-issue environmental party with its own kooky stances on other issues). Unless Trudeau holds his own and convinces them it’s not a panacea for Canada’s problems, but might actually make things worse.
What if PPC got 5%. That’s 17 seats in Parliament. PR-or-bust obsessives will say it reflects the will of the people. Well, look at Brexit. Look at Trump. Look at all these neo-fascists gaining power all over Eastern Europe. The first was a referendum. The second — the electoral college can’t really be compared to anything, but getting rid of it isn’t necessarily a solution either (the same system produced Obama; the problem isn’t so much the system but voter suppression — much of it racialized — and low turnout, due to suppression but also apathy). The latter mostly have various systems of PR, yet have elevated autocratic strongmen who’ve ended up going after their opponents with less-than-democratic means (and so has Trump, albeit much less competently). All of which are nevertheless considered democratic results of “the will of the people.” Sometimes the will of the people is flat-out wrong.
Maybe that study about people losing faith in democracy shouldn’t be interpreted so much as people losing faith in their leaders or the institutions of government but in the intelligence of their fellow voters. Churchill had something to say about that. Because if Trudeau does end up having to concede PR to May and Singh, and the Reformacons steal power again by some fluke and enter into a coalition of their own, he can look back later, point fingers at the two of them, and say “I told you so” when Canada ends up with its own Enabling Act from Dumkopfenfuhrer Doug Ford or Max Bernier. For the People!
JB — thank you.